Mar

26

Alternative Minimum Tax Issue

March 26, 2007 | 1 Comment

The middle class families are now complaining about the Alternative Minimum Tax. They are complaining that soon, even families earning $75,000/year will be hit by it. I do complaint about the unfair tax, and I consider myself middle class. However, I have to say this is a case where the middle class [...]

Mar

22

My Subscriptions

March 22, 2007 | Comments Off

Today I sat down to calculate my subscription payments over the course of a year. I may have missed a few, but so far I get $2,305/year. I look at the subscriptions list and none, absolutely none of them are necessary at all. (Some may argue that the VoIP phone is necessary, [...]

Mar

21

Sick Days as An Independent Consultant

March 21, 2007 | Comments Off

Today I have a really bad pain in the neck, literally. Every time I move it (anywhere) it hurts terribly. Since my neck (and probably no-one’s else) can be fixed in position without using some kind of restraint, it is hurting frequently and it is becoming unbearable. It is not the first [...]

Mar

21

Loans and Cigarettes – Both Turning Kids into Addicts

March 21, 2007 | Comments Off

I happen to invest in both loan and cigarette producing companies. You probably have seen my cash-cow portfolio. One thing that both banks and Altria/Phillip Morris (MO) have in common is that they make addicts of very young people: before they even have an income to buy their products.It is no secret [...]

Mar

20

Greenhouse Gases: Selling Credits

March 20, 2007 | Comments Off

I truly believe that Greenhouse Gases contribute to global warming, which in turn could create accelerated damage to our health, economy and society. We have to do something, and I find myself partially in agreement with proposals like the one presented by Senator Edwards of charging money for the “right” of dumping these gases [...]

Mar

19

Is Bigger Better? Airbus vs. Boeing

March 19, 2007 | Comments Off

For some things it may. For airplanes, bigger has not proven to be better this time on the battle for next-generation airplane sales between the Airbus 380 and the Boeing 787 as much as it did in earlier days of aviation with the Boeing 747. The Boeing next generation plane has 490 firm [...]

Mar

17

Sub-Prime

March 17, 2007 | Comments Off

Sub-Prime loan customers, by definition, are risky business. Loaning to a sub-prime customer is loaning money to someone that has either been proven untrustworthy or is expected to be untrustworthy: someone who has failed on his payments before (broken a promise) or would be getting into such a high level of debt-to-income ratio [...]

Mar

15

No Shortage of Salespeople: Of Workers Maybe

March 15, 2007 | Comments Off

I have met or spoken with many people looking for technical consultants in my area of expertise. They even have contracts ready and waiting to start: they just can’t find enough consultants to do the job. Apparently there is no shortage of companies willing to offload their tasks to a consultant, and [...]

Mar

15

Acceptance Criteria Definition – A Project Before the Project

March 15, 2007 | Comments Off

When you provide professional services you usually have two contracting options: either you deliver services by the hour (or day) in a “time and materials” kind of contract, or you offer a “fixed cost” for fixed deliverables contract. The former gives flexibility to the client to cut losses soon if you do not [...]

Mar

6

My Dividend Stocks (2007 Q1)

March 6, 2007 | 2 Comments

As a response to my 2007 Financial Resolutions posting someone asked what dividend generating stocks I use. I do have a mixture of growth stocks and cash cow stocks. Some of the growth stocks generate a small amount of dividends (and I still count those towards my yearly dividend goals), but that is [...]